Page 11 of Fierce Love (Tucker Billionaires)

Chapter Nine

Hollyn

Fourteen years ago

I t takes him a week to keep the promise he shouted from the doorway of the bar before he left.

In the days in between, I convinced myself that he wouldn’t show up or that, if he did, I wouldn’t even notice.

But the minute he enters The Drunk Raccoon, it’s like something inside of me knows , as though the energy in the room shifts with his presence.

Unlike last weekend, there’s no departing cruise ship—that’s tomorrow—so the bar has a steady stream of people without being too crowded.

He swaggers to a table, loose-hipped and confident in a way only criminals and rich people are, and I wonder how I missed all the signs of privilege the other night.

The camp attendant’s outfit and his callused hands threw me off. Even today, his worn jeans and soft flannel shirt suggest the rugged outdoors more than fancy dinners and Rolex watches.

The confidence, though—there’s no disguising that.

Lots of guys are cocky for no reason, and maybe I just assumed his kissing skills were his source of confidence. The Tucker family have lots of reasons for their inflated egos, and most of those are not good.

He's chosen one of my tables, and I wait as long as I can before Elmore’s glare from behind the bar tells me that I can’t keep ignoring a paying customer.

“Hollyn Davis,” he drawls with a grin when I approach his table. I hate that his lips are full and kissable, that the memory of them pressed against mine is still so fresh. “I told you I’d be back.”

“Nathaniel Tucker,” I say with a falsely sweet smile. “What can I get for you?”

“Nate. My friends call me Nate.”

“We’re not friends, so Nathaniel it is.”

“I’ve been thinking about that this week, actually.

” He gives me a pensive look, brow furrowed.

“Since you’re my future wife, do I risk being temporarily friendzoned despite that amazing kiss last week?

Friendship is a viable route. I think I’d be able to swerve out of that lane eventually.

Or do I go after what I really want, even if I’m worried you might think I’m too much too soon? ”

“Guys never get the ‘too much’ or ‘too soon’ label,” I say, my pen poised over my notepad. “That privilege is exclusively given to women.”

“My sisters would disagree with that.”

“That’s because they have a different kind of privilege that allows them to do that. Maybe even to be taken seriously when they feel something is wrong or unjust. I wouldn’t know. Drink?”

His gaze travels over my face for a beat, and awareness prickles across my skin.

His handsomeness is annoying in its genuineness—bright eyes, messy hair, casual clothes.

He’s not glossy or polished, and I almost wish that he was.

Polished would be easy to bat away, to ignore.

Polished would never understand the complications in my life, my past. Polished would never even get a glimpse at my heart.

There’s an energy between us that I’ve never felt before, and I cannot decide if I should allow myself to be exhilarated or if I should force myself to run. Either way, when our eyes lock, I know I can’t deny its existence.

“I’ll have a gold rush,” he says, his gaze still locked with mine.

“You aren’t eighteen,” I murmur. “I can’t serve minors.”

“My ID says otherwise.” He tries and fails to smother a charming grin. “Did you want to see it?”

“Everyone knows who you are,” I say. “There’s no way a fake ID works on this island.”

“I didn’t say it was fake,” he says, reaching into his back pocket and removing his wallet before setting it on the table, unopened. “That must mean you knew who I was the other night when you pressed your hand to my back.”

Heat rises into my cheeks, swift and ferocious. I’m not sure which admission would be more damning—the truth or a lie?

“I didn’t,” I admit.

He slips his ID out of his wallet and sets it on the table, and when I look down at it, I see I was right. His birthday is in the fall, and it’s only late spring right now. “You’re not eighteen.”

“I’d still get served if I took it to Elmore,” he says.

“Because you’re a Tucker,” I say, and I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice.

“I’m just saying you won’t get in trouble.” He tries to catch my eyes. “You’ll be a Tucker one day too.”

“No, I won’t.” I tap my pen on the edge of my notepad, but I don’t write down the gold rush he requested.

The other night, I knew he was drinking, and his alcohol consumption didn’t bother me.

For the first time in my life, the smell of alcohol on a guy’s breath hadn’t been completely repulsive, but I don’t like that he’s here by himself ordering a drink.

“When did you turn eighteen?” he asks, his voice quiet, but his eyes on me are intense, searching.

“A few months ago.”

“When, exactly?”

“Why?”

“It’s my favorite day of the year. I can’t have someone ask me for my favorite day and then not know the date.”

I shake my head and stifle my smile. “February first.”

“Missed it by a mile this year. I won’t make that mistake again. Can I buy you a birthday drink now?”

“I don’t drink.”

“Me either,” he says, slipping his ID back into his wallet. “Just quit today. I’ll have a Coke. Probably shouldn’t be drinking when I’ll be driving you around the island after your shift anyway.”

I let out a laugh. “Driving me where?”

“Wherever you want to go, as long as you’re in the passenger seat beside me.”

Our gazes meet again, and he holds mine, his sincerity clear, so I try to make mine clear too. “Look, if you’re hoping to hook up with some starry-eyed poor girl for fun, you’ve come to the wrong bar. Or at least the wrong waitress. I don’t do random hookups with bored, rich guys.”

His lips tip up in an almost smile, and he sits back in his chair, arms crossed.

“If I was a bored rich guy, I might be offended.” He sets his phone face down on the table.

“Your claim isn’t very convincing anyway.

” There’s a teasing glint in his blue-green eyes.

“I mean, you were the one who asked me to be your boyfriend the other night. Asked me to kiss you. And you certainly looked a little starry-eyed after our kiss, so…” He raises his eyebrows and gives a little shrug like I’m the problem, not him.

There’s no easy comeback or brutal honesty I can drop on him, because he’s right. All of it happened exactly as he says, and there’s a part of me that really wants to give into whatever he’s proposing. Heat rushes to my cheeks again, and I’m sure I’m bright red with embarrassment.

“I didn’t come here looking for a poor girl or a random hookup. I came here looking for you. Just you. Rich or poor. Hookup or friendzoned; I don’t care. Whatever I felt the other night, whatever this is right now—I want more of it. As much as I can get for as long as you’ll let me have it.”

A web of cracks streaks across my hard heart at his earnest delivery.

His private school education has certainly given him the gift of persuasion.

“You’re a Tucker,” I say, the words falling out of my mouth before I can stop myself.

“I’m a Davis. A Thompson. Do you understand what that means? What I’m coming from?”

“You’re Hollyn,” he says. “And I’m Nate. And I don’t care who’s a Tucker or a Davis or a Thompson. None of that matters to me.”

But it’ll matter to other people, and he won’t be the one facing their wrath, looking over his shoulder. Agreeing to go anywhere with him is a field of potential landmines, given my family.

“I don’t know,” I hedge.

“Give me one night. Tonight. If I can’t convince you that this is worth whatever comes our way, then I’ll figure out how to let it go. I promise.” He extends his pinky finger toward me, and he holds eye contact as I hook my finger around his.

“One night,” I say.

The stars dot the sky, an incalculable number, impossibly bright.

Nate eases one hand under his head while his other points out another constellation.

Then he takes my finger and traces the stars across the sky.

Beneath us, the floor of the boat is cool, even through the blankets.

When we arrived at the campground, Callahan met us with the keys to a boat.

We’d gone down the narrow cliff face path to a sheltered dock, and from there, Nate had taken us off the island on the biggest boat I’ve ever been on to the middle of nowhere.

There isn’t any artificial light for miles.

The ocean rocks us, lulling me into a false sense of peace.

“Constellations are rich-people education,” I say, and Nate’s laugh beside me is gentle. Everything about the night has been dusted with magic.

“Everyone can see the stars.”

“Not everyone has time to see the stars and research constellations and memorize them.”

“It’s a personal interest. Not everything about me is because my family has money,” he says.

“Maybe that’s true. I can’t believe a campground is your favorite place in the world .”

“You’re never going to get over that.”

“Never. After all the places you’ve told me you’ve been, that is where you’d most like to be?”

“Right now, this is where I’d most like to be.

” He glances at me, the moon casting a glow across his features.

Painfully handsome. “I love it there,” he says.

“Splitting wood with Cal is the highlight of my week. They need a lot of it for the summer campers, and I find the work strangely satisfying.”

“Hence the calluses on your hands.”

“Hard work comes at a cost,” he says, and the same teasing tone is in his voice.

“You could just buy your own campground.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Might just be Cal’s parents’ place that makes me feel this way and not any ol’ campground, you know? Can’t buy anything until I’m eighteen anyway. After that, I’m out from under Celia Tucker’s iron fist.”

“You don’t get along with your mom?”

“It’s not that.”